The Sienanteprima CD is the invitation which the City of Siena sends at the beginning of the year to tour operators and dedicated press. It shows a city with lots of different opportunities and outstanding activities: music, art, gastronomy, sports, shopping… Something completely different from the stereotyped Siena of the "Palio, Gothic architecture and Panforte" which often characterizes our tourist image. Sienanteprima shows a city which is rich in events: 400, more than one a day and able to offer important exhibitions on the Etruscans as well as post-avant-garde installations, baroque music concerts and after that jazz or rock festivals.
What is new with Sienanteprima 2008 is the packaging and the electronics. The disc is in a cardboard which, once opened, becomes a playbill of the main events of the year. The idea is to ask the hospitality facilities in Siena, who will receive the CD in the month of February, to display this pamphlet at the reception area. We hope that the tourists will feel motivated to take advantage of the cultural and entertaining opportunities which the city puts at their disposal.
The innovation in Sienanteprima 2008 is mostly digital: 4 new videos (devoted to art and savoury craftwork, to the city crossed on foot on the occasion of urban trekking and to the Museum Complex of Santa Maria della Scala) and a mechanism which makes it possible to have a calendar of the events updated through a link between the CD and the database of the portal of the City Council.
Sienanteprima has been edited by Elisa Grisolaghi of the City of Siena offices, the database is by "Sogno Telematico" cooperative, the videos have been directed by "Ars Nova" and the graphics are by "Headbox". An invitation created thanks to the joint effort of several people spreading an image of an ancient and hospitable city to the world. A city which awaits tourists to offer them emotions, culture and joy.

Donatella Cinelli Colombini
Head of Tourism for the City of Siena